"Kermit Gosnell killed babies after they survived an abortion attempt, which is an action that was just recently ," explained Jennifer Mason, spokesperson for Personhood USA. "Planned Parenthood just recently testified that it is up to the mother and her doctor whether a baby who is born alive after an attempted abortion should be killed after delivery. Kermit Gosnell, Planned Parenthood, and abortionists across the country are guilty of killing innocent people. It is time for an investigation into Planned Parenthood's defense of post-birth killings at their own clinics and laws to end the barbaric practice of abortion entirely."

Abortion providers across the country use several methods to kill unborn children, including dilation and evacuation (D&E), a method extremely similar to that which Gosnell performed in his clinic.

"Abortion providers nationwide kill babies every single day usingincluding dismemberment, stabbing, suctioning, and severing of spinal cords. All abortion clinics are extremely dangerous, and all of them kill living babies," continued Mason. "The location of the baby does not determine the personhood of the baby whether in the womb or out of it, every baby should be protected."

"Gosnell is abortion personified," Mason concluded. "The faces of those babies killed at his clinic are representative of the faces of every baby killed at every clinic. Other abortion providers are just as guilty as Gosnell. The conditions may be different, but the results are the same every abortion yields one dead baby and one wounded mother."

SOURCE Personhood USA

Defending champion Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria moved into third in the overall classification after finishing 10th in Friday's stage.

It was a difficult day for Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins, who had trouble negotiating the slippery roads on a technical descent shortly before the finish. He fell at one point but did not appear to suffer a major injury. Still, he appeared unnerved and lost more than a minute to the other contenders.

Hansen, who rides for the Lotto Belisol team, clocked more than 4 1/2 hours over the 176-kilometre leg from San Salvo to Pescara.

Enrico Battaglin of Italy finished second, one minute seven seconds behind, and 2007 Giro winner Danilo Di Luca of Italy was third with the same time.

Intxausti, who rides for the Movistar team, took a five-second lead over top contender Vincenzo Nibali of Italy, with Hesjedal eight seconds back in third.

Wiggins is 1:32 behind, although he could make up a big chunk of time in stage 8 on Saturday, a 55-kilometre individual time trial from Gabicce Mare to Saltara where he'll be the top favourite.

Hansen broke away from the main pack with other riders just 30 kilometres into the stage then attacked his last breakaway companion, Emanuele Sella of Italy, with 20 kilometres to go.

"Our team tactics were to get in a breakaway and today was the day we thought best to be in the break," Hansen said. "This is the biggest win of my life."

Sella also fell twice, and Nibali slid nearly 10 metres across the road during a downhill attack. He also appeared to avoid serious injury.

Many other riders also fell.

"I wanted to earn some time before tomorrow's time trial," Nibali said. "It would have been better without the fall."

The race ends May 26 in Brescia.

LONDON (Reuters) - British judges ruled on Wednesday that the government has breached European Union air quality law and asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for guidance on what action needs to be taken, delaying immediate improvements to air pollution.

Britain's highest appeal court, the Supreme Court, said the government was in breach of an EU directive which put limits on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) - a colourless, odourless gas produced by burning fuels which can damage people's breathing.

London has the highest levels of NO2 of any European capital. Around 29,000 early deaths a year in Britain are attributed to air pollution, according to a body which advises the government.

Before deciding on further action, the Supreme Court referred a number of legal questions to the ECJ in Luxembourg, which could take up to 18 months to answer.

The Supreme Court could eventually force the government to take certain steps to improve air quality but does not have the power to issue fines, according to Alan Andrews, lawyer at the firm ClientEarth which brought the case against the government in 2011.

The environmental law firm wanted to force the government to come up with an air quality plan to comply with European Union limits on N02 concentrations by 2015.

The High Court and the Court of Appeal refused to take action on the issue and the case went to the Supreme Court.

Under the EU directive, member states were supposed to comply with limits on NO2 in 2010 but the deadline could be extended by five years if a plan to deal with high levels of NO2 was delivered.

Court documents show 40 out of Britain's 43 air quality zones exceeded the limits for 2010 and the government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said 23 zones might comply by 2015 and 16 between 2015 and 2020, while London is not expected to comply before 2025.

"This historic ruling marks a turning point in the fight for clean air and will pile the pressure on Owen Paterson," said James Thornton, chief executive of ClientEarth, referring to the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"He must now come up with an ambitious plan to protect people from carcinogenic diesel fumes," he added, which are largely blamed for creating NO2.

A spokesman for the European Commission said the body could already take legal action against Britain.

"It has not been done yet because we're working through a number of countries because it's easier to bring one horizontal action (against them all)," said spokesman Joe Hennon.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

Oz the dog helped save his owner's life when a fire broke out in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.

that Randy Merlo was fast asleep in his home when Oz sensed something was wrong. Merlo told WNEP that the 12-year-old cocker spaniel woke him up on purpose.

"He was nudging me or whatever, what I can remember, he was nudging me, and I smelled smoke and we left. Saved my life, he probably did, most likely he did, Merlo told WNEP. "He's a good dog."

Merlo and Oz escaped the blaze, but the housea duplexsuffered extensive fire, smoke, and water damage. The fire reportedly originated in the basement of the vacant side of the building.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire. "We determined the origin in the basement of the home. Were saying incendiary, suspicious but still under investigation," Police Chief Brian Hollenbush told WNEP.

Cocker spaniels are known for their loyalty. , a site that focuses on the well-being of pets, writes that they are "loyal, endearing companions that craveand thrive onhuman attention."blog ranks cocker spaniels seventh in terms of breed loyalty. Number one? The German shepard. We think Oz might take issue with that.

Nobody Spoils a Good Story Like Congress

Enjoy the good news, America, while it lasts.

The Labor Department reported today that U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in April and far more in February and March than expected, despite tax increases and federal spending cuts.

Enter Congress. Lawmakers return from vacation Monday to begin squabbling over another self-created economic crisis: the nations debt limit. House Republicans will push a bill signaling no retreat from their demands for more spending cuts as a condition for avoiding default.

Also on Congresss crowded agenda:

Ron Fournier

JOBS REPORT BEATS PROJECTIONS, BUT LAGS BEHIND NECESSARY GROWTH. The Labor Department released its monthly jobs report this morning, reflecting faster-than-expected increases in employment in April and an upward revision of the employment figures for February and March. Nonfarm payrolls added 165,000 jobs in April, and overall unemployment dropped to 7.5 percent, a level not seen since December 2008. The figures beat economists projections ahead of the report. Despite the gains, the growth rate lagged behind the first-quarter monthly average of 206,000 jobs added, signaling a potential economic slowdown. The increases were driven by private-sector growth, as public-sector employment dropped by 11,000 in April. Economists estimate that employment must grow by an average of 300,000 positions per month to markedly reduce unemployment.

OBAMA IN MEXICO CITY: COUNTRIES ARE GREATEST OF PARTNERS. In a speech at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City this morning, President Obama expounded on the relationship between Mexico and the United States. This is your moment, Obama said. As you dream for that future, always remember that you have the greatest of partners, the greatest of friends, the nation that is rooting for your success more than anybody else, your neighbor, the United States of America. The president also addressed the ongoing debate over immigration reform, telling the crowd, I am optimistic that after years of trying, we are going to get it done this year. I'm absolutely convinced of it. Obama also urged the abandonment of old stereotypes on both sides of the border.

INOUYES WIDOW BACKS HANABUSA IN SPECIAL ELECTION. Irene Hirano Inouye, the widow of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has endorsed Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii in the special election to replace her husband. Sen. Inouye wrote to Gov. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, shortly before his death to urge Abercrombie to appoint Hanabusa to his seat. Abercrombie instead appointed his lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz. Shortly after she was elected president of the Hawaii state Senate, Dan recognized that Colleen was more than capable of succeeding him and he began to mentor her, Irene Inouye said in a statement. His last wish was that Colleen serve out his term because he was confident in her ability to step into the Senate and immediately help Hawaii. I am honoring one of his last requests, and look forward to supporting Colleen on the campaign trail.

STATE DEPARTMENT WILL NOT FURLOUGH EMPLOYEES THIS YEAR. The State Department will not furlough any of its employees due to budget cuts imposed by sequestration, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy said today. Ultimately the department will have to cut $400 million from its budget, rather than the $850 million that was initially expected. Kennedy said that in light of this revision and cost-cutting measures such as travel and hiring reductions, the department will avoid furloughs at least until the end of the current budget year.

PRITZKER NOD COULD HIGHLIGHT TENSE RELATIONSHIP WITH JARRETT. President Obamas nomination Thursday of Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker to serve as Commerce secretary brings to Washington a rivalry with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, BuzzFeed reports. Jarrett reportedly attempted to torpedo the appointment on the grounds that labor groups would oppose Pritzker due to tensions with the Hyatt Hotel corporation, which is controlled by her family. Pritzker has close ties to the business community, which in large part backed her nomination Thursday.

THE GOPS OBAMACARE PLOY. Alegislative proposal from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman DaveCamp, R-Mich., will keep alive the controversy over whether Democrats inCongress really want their colleagues in government to get theirinsurance on new health exchanges--a story that is playing well forRepublicans. But it will come at the cost of a federal-employee healthinsurance system that conservatives have long held up as a model for howinsurance should be delivered, National Journals Margot Sanger-Katz reports.

STOPPING TERRORISM AT ITS SOURCE. The more we learn about the Boston Marathon bombings, the greater our sense that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected perpetrators, could have been stopped. Its a seductive notion: The families of an 8-year-old boy, two young women, and a campus police officer might still have their loved ones today, and that dozens of others might still possess limbs and their former lives, if only the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies had pieced together clues that in hindsight appear obvious. After an era when homeland terrorism was nearly forgotten, Americans had better be set for the next threat, and fast, National Journals Michael Hirsh reports in this weeks magazine cover story.

WHAT IS A RED LINE WORTH? The United States cant bluff. That is the consensus inside the White House on the issuing of red lines, including President Obamas publicly declared prohibition against Syria using or transferring its chemical weapons, or Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. But as National Journals James Kitfield reports, Syria is testing the idea that nations cant cross the United States. What happens if other countries copy it?

THE CAJUN COMEBACK. New Orleans officials are trying surprising new approaches that, before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, would have been impossible. These tactics arent designed merely to repair the damage and restore the city that was, but to improve on it. A crisis, New Orleanians seem to have collectively decided, is a terrible thing to waste. From education to tech to film, residents have turned their town into a laboratory for civic experimentation. Theyre luring Hollywood studios by teaching themselves showbiz tricks, advancing a state tax-credit program launched before Katrina. Theyre running new data-driven nonprofits. And theyve chartered more than 80 percent of the school system, National Journals Adam Kushner reports.

WHAT YOUVE ALWAYS WANTED: THE AL FRANKEN COOKBOOK. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has published a cookbook of recipes from the state delegations annual Hotdish Cook-Off, whichApril 10. Among the offerings are the contest-winning Hermann the German Hotdish from Democratic Rep. Tim Walz and the Hormel I Cant Believe Its Not SPAM Pepperoni Pizza Hotdish from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The book is availableonline.

"I pray that Hillary Clinton decides to run for president of the United States." Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, speaking in Arkansas ()

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A ZOO OF DANGEROUS ANIMALS IS RELEASED ON A TOWN? Early one evening in Zanesville, Ohio, retired schoolteacher Sam Kopchak was doing a routine check on his horses, walking toward a barn when his eye caught something out of place, just sitting there on the ground, facing their way. A fully grown male African lion, writes Chris Heath for GQ in his National Magazine Award-winning piece about a depressed, desperate man, Terry Thompson, who set a vast array of exotic animals looseincluding 18 tigers, 17 lions, eight bears, three cougars, two wolves, one baboon, and one macaque. Heath chronicles the tragic hunt for the animals that played out in the days after their release, and the national discussion that ensued about the unregulated world of exotic pets that is much more commonplace than most people could imagine.

OBAMA IN MEXICO. President Obamas trip to Mexico had Jay Leno dwelling on two of his favorite political topics: Obamas economic record and the immigration issue. The president is in Mexico to talk with leaders there about the North American economy and immigration, which prompted the Tonight Show host to say that Obama actually has to leave the country to tout any economic successes. Leno later compared talking about immigration in Mexico to touting same-sex marriage in San Francisco. Stephen Colbert jumped on Obamas recent comments about closing the detention facilities at Guantnamo Bay. With hunger strikes ongoing, Colbert mentioned Mahatma Gandhis fame in the arena.

THINK DEMOCRATS HAVE MILLENNIALS LOCKED UP? THINK AGAIN. President Obama carried the 18-to-29-year-old voting bloc by 34 points in 2008 and by 23 points last year. But a national survey of millennial voters conducted by Harvards Institute of Politics suggests that this emerging generation might not be as locked into the Democratic camp as conventional wisdom suggests, and that young voters exhibit some of the same stark partisan divides as older Americans, The Cook Political Reports Charlie Cook writes.

SYRIA, BOSTON AND IMMIGRATION ON TAP. This week the Sunday shows are focusing on Syria and the continuinginvestigation on the Boston Marathon Bombing. The specter of immigrationreform will also have a role in the programming. President Obama will appear on Univision's Al Punto.

The fourth-seeded Wolverines (31-7) are back in the final for the first time in 20 years, when a brash group better known as the Fab Five was the talk of college basketball.

Top-seeded Louisville (34-5) is trying to bring its first title back to the state of Kentucky's "other" school since 1986. Sitting on the bench with the Cardinals is sophomore guard Kevin Ware, the team's inspiration since snapping his tibia in the regional final last weekend.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino is working the sideline hours after being named to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

Pitino is trying to become the first coach to lead two programs to national championships. He took Kentucky to the title in 1996.

Smith, the Louisville team leader who Pitino has nicknamed "Russdiculous" for some of his wild and wildly effective antics on the court, scores 18.9 points a game for the Cardinals during the season but has picked up the scoring in the tournament, averaging 25 in the five Louisville wins.

The Cardinals are playing without their main reserve, Ware, who broke his leg in the regional final against Duke. Needing a pickup without Ware, reserve swingman Luke Hancock scored 20 points in the 72-68 win over Wichita State. And rarely used walk-on Tim Henderson made two key 3-pointers during the comeback.

"The other night, we were not going to play in the championship game unless a walk-on steps up and makes a play to give us momentum," Pitino said in a pregame interview.

Chris Webber, who infamously called a timeout the Wolverines didn't have at the end of Michigan's 77-71 loss to North Carolina in the 1993 final, has had very little to do with his alma mater in recent years, but was on hand at the Georgia Dome to watch Monday's game.

In the program's first Final Four game since then, Michigan topped Syracuse 61-56 on Saturday despite an off night from Burke, who finished with only seven points on 1-for-8 shooting.

Burke, a sophomore, seriously considered leaving for the NBA after last season but decided he had unfinished business left in Ann Arbor. He picked up the AP Player of the Year award, among others, and is now one victory away from the ultimate prize in college hoops.

Before leaving the locker room, Michigan coach John Beilein gave his team a pep talk: "You play with poise, play with confidence, you do all those things today and we're going to have one heck of a celebration," he said.

Monday night's game is the final act in what has been an ugly season overall in college hoops, with scoring at its lowest (67.49 points per team) since 1951-52 and shooting at its worst (43.3 percent) since 1964-65. The 131.2-points-per-game average during March Madness is the lowest since the 3-point line was brought to the game in 1987.

In their visualization, they note February 3rd, 1913 as the day Congress ratified the 16th Amendment giving them the authority to enact an income tax. Prior to 1913, only taxes were raised during the civil war and the first income tax day was March 1, 1914.

Four years later the the Revenue Act moved tax day forward two weeks, standing on the day we currently celebrate today (April 15th). Heres a complete look at the history:

More Social articles from :

TUPELO, Mississippi (Reuters) - A Mississippi martial arts instructor appeared in federal court on Monday to face charges in connection with mailing letters containing the deadly poison ricin to President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested on Saturday in Tupelo, Mississippi, after authorities searched his former business and home. He is charged with developing and possessing ricin and attempting to use it as a weapon.

Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, Dutschke responded briefly to a judge's questions at the hearing in Oxford, Mississippi, on whether he understood the charges against him. The judge ordered a preliminary hearing be held on Thursday when prosecutors will present more detailed evidence in the case.

An indictment detailing the charges is under seal but could be made public later on Monday, said George Lucas, Dutschke's court appointed attorney.

Dutschke has denied having any involvement with the ricin letters and said he cooperated with federal officials during their searches.

He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Dutschke's arrest came nearly two weeks after suspicious letters intended for Obama and U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi were intercepted in Washington. Tests showed they were tainted with ricin, a highly lethal poison made from castor beans. A separate ricin-lased letter was also sent to a Mississippi judge.

Authorities initially arrested another Mississippi man, Kevin Curtis, in the case but dropped the charges last week after a search of his house failed to turn up any evidence of his involvement.

Dutschke's name surfaced at a court hearing when Curtis' attorney suggested someone framed her client and mentioned a running feud between the two men.

He also faces charges in a separate case related to an April 1 indictment for fondling three children between ages 7 and 16, from 2007 to 2013, according to court records.

The ricin-tainted letters were discovered just days after the bombings of the Boston Marathon and during the massive police manhunt for those responsible, helping to fuel anxiety in the United States, especially in the capital.

The case rekindled memories of the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks that killed five people and puzzled investigators for years. The Justice Department later said that a U.S. scientist who committed suicide was responsible.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Gray in Miami.; Editing by David Adams and Andrew Hay)

Some 50,000 years ago, aboriginal human settlers arrived on the continent, but how many people it took tois unknown. The new study, published Tuesday (April 23) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that about 1,000 to 3,000 individuals originally landed on Australia's shores.

"This is largely speculative, but I think this suggests something more than accidental colonization by a small group on a raft of vegetation or other unplanned voyage," study researcher Alan Williams, a doctoral candidate at The Australian National University, wrote in an email. "For me, this suggests a deliberate attempt at exploration (if not migration) more akin to those we see in the recent past from ." []

Arriving in Australia

Europeans did not discover Australia until 1606, when Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon spotted the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. A few landings andfollowed, but the indigenous people of the continent remained largely undisturbed until the British colonized it in the late 1700s, setting up a penal colony in New South Wales in 1788.

Even thein 1788 is a bit of a mystery, with estimates of the population ranging from 250,000 to 1.2 million. Further back, the story of Australia's human population is shrouded, though gene studies suggest a relatively large founder population would have been necessary to result in the genetic diversity seen today. It's not clear whether the original inhabitants of Australia multiplied and spread across the continent rapidly or remained small in number until the last 5,000 years or so, Williams told LiveScience.

Williams approached the question by using 4,575 radiocarbon dates from 1,750 sites around the continent. Radiocarbon dating works by measuring variations in carbon called isotopes that change predictably with age.

Williams assumed that more sites dating to a certain time reflected a larger population at that time. (It's possible, Williams said, that this assumption is flawed; though he doesn't believe it himself, some researchers have suggested that a small group of highly mobile people might account for spikes in the number of archaeological sites seen in a given time, without any population growth.)

Climate and colonization

Using this large database of dates, Williams reconstructed a timeline of Australia's population in prehistory. Assuming a single wave of colonization 50,000 years ago, he found that Australia stayed sparsely populated until about 11,000 years ago. The population then started increasing gradually to reach a peak of about 3 million individuals 500 years ago. (Today, 23 million people live in Australia.)

The data then show a decline to about 700,000 to 1 million individuals at the time of European contact. The reason for the drop is still unclear: It could be due to a quirk in the database, or it might reflect a real decline. In the 1700s before major European intrusion into Australia Indonesian sailors, known as Macassans, ventured to Australia to hunt sea cucumber, and that cultural contact may have brought disease that hit the indigenous population hard, Williams said.

Australiasshows a number of dips and spikes, some of which correspond with known climate changes, Williams said. Among the most pronounced population changes is a major decline from 21,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago, when the population dropped by 60 percent. This decline may have been due to the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets were at their most extensive point and Australia cooled and dried, Williams said. (This is also when the currentformed.) Its likely that fewer than 500,000 people lived in Australia at that time, so the effect wasnt quite as pronounced as it would be today, when a 60 percent decline in population would correspond to the loss of 14 million Australians today, he said.

The results raise new questions, Williams said, including what prompted the gradual increase in population about 11,000 years ago. Given that the founding population would have numbered in the thousands, the results also require a look at what might have motivated an organized exploration and colonization effort 50,000 years ago.

"Was it climatic? Was it cognitive?" Williams said. "It looks less like an accidental discovery."

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Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.

This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel's front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country's large stockpile of chemical weapons.

In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.

Though Israel believes these have mostly been cases of errant fire, it has responded with firepower of its own on several occasions in the first round of hostilities since a long-term armistice took hold after the 1973 Mideast war.

"This area became a huge ungoverned area and inside an ungoverned area many, many players want to be inside and want to play their own role and to work for their own interests," said Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli brigadier general who is involved in the military's strategic planning and operations. "Syria became a place that we see as a big threat to Israel and that is why we started to work in the last two years on a strong obstacle, on our infrastructure, in order to make sure that we will be ready for the future. And the future is here already."

Officials say the military's present deployment on the plateau is its most robust since 1973, and its most obvious manifestation is the brand new border fence, 6 meters (20 feet) tall, topped with barbed wire and bristling with sophisticated anti-infiltration devices. The previous rundown fence was largely untested until it was trampled over last year by Syrians protesting on behalf of Palestinians.

The military would not detail other measures it is taking, but stressed it was actively defining the new border arrangement now, before it could be too late.

On the other side of the frontier, the village of Bir Ajam is in rebel hands and Israeli troops report watching them successfully deflect Syrian military pre-dawn raids almost daily. In a village nearby, Syrian intelligence and commando forces are based in concrete, windowless structures.

At the triangle where the borders of Israel, Syria and Jordan meet along the Yarmouk River, a lone jeep is seen crossing uninterrupted from Jordan into Syria. In March, rebels kidnapped 21 Filipino U.N peacekeepers nearby. Thousands of refugees have used the route to flee the carnage into Jordan.

A few injured refugees have trickled into the Golan, and the military runs a field clinic to treat them. But there's no guarantee the trickle won't become a flood if Jordan in the south or Turkey in the north become unreachable.

"Syria right now is a kind of self-evolving system," Hirsch said. "No one can control or predict everything."

Israel, which borders southwestern Syria, has thus far been careful to stay on the sidelines of a civil war that has already claimed the lives of more than 70,000.

Assad is a bitter enemy, an ally of Iran and a major backer of Lebanese Hezbollah guerilla attacks against Israel. But like his father whom he succeeded as president, he has faithfully observed U.S.-brokered accords that ended the 1973 war. Israel worries that whoever comes out on top in the civil war will be a much more dangerous adversary.

Chief among Israeli concerns is that Assad's advanced weaponry could reach the hands of either his ally, the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, or Islamic extremist groups among the rebels trying to oust him.

"Syria is not a regular place ... it is the biggest warehouse for weapons on earth," Hirsch warned.

In an interview with BBC TV last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the rebel groups among "the worst Islamist radicals in the world."

"So obviously we are concerned that weapons that are ground-breaking, that can change the balance of power in the Middle East, would fall into the hands of these terrorists," he said.

This week, a senior Israeli military intelligence official said Assad used chemical weapons last month. After initial denials, American and British officials confirmed the assessment of Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, that the lethal nerve agent sarin was probably used. U.S. President Barack Obama has warned that the introduction of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer" that could usher in greater foreign intervention in the civil war.

For Israel, the specter of peace with Syria disintegrating adds to a growing sense of siege. It saw the Gaza Strip fall to the militant Hamas movement in an election in 2006. And Egypt, the most populous Arab country and the first to make peace with Israel, is now ruled by the fiercely anti-Israeli Muslim Brotherhood. All this against the backdrop of the Iranian nuclear program and its threats to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel has all but admitted that its warplanes destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles believed to be headed from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon in January, and on Thursday it shot down a drone which it said it suspects was operated by Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied launching it.

Hirsch, who commanded an Israeli division in a monthlong war with Hezbollah in 2006, said war regional roles have since then been reversed. While once Syria used Hezbollah in Lebanon as a proxy against Israel, Hezbollah is now deterred from acting on Lebanese soil for fear of Israeli retribution and is preparing to use the instability in Syria as its future staging ground.

"The fighting in Syria gives them an opportunity to open a new front against Israel," said Hirsch. "We must be ready for turbulence. We must be ready for the Iranian involvement inside Syria. We must be ready to be able to fight against radical fundamentalist activities that will come from Syria, and that is what we are doing here."

___

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